Dr. Paul Offit spends some of his time teaching others how to convince the public vaccines are safe, even as his own vaccine, Merck's RotaTeq, faces scutiny and recall (in Hong Kong, not the USA).

Click HERE to listen to the April 28th Virtual Immunization Communication Network Webinar "featuring Paul A. Offit, MD, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Offit will speak on current issues around parent and public concerns about vaccine safety and discuss how health professionals can effectively communicate scientific information to help the public distinguish between bad science and good science."

The Virtual Immunization Communication (VIC ) Network is a project of the National Public Health Information Coalition (NPHIC) and the California Immunization Coalition, funded through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Below the jump is the straight text pulled from the .pdf. It's not formatted, but you can get an at a glance look at the content. Dr. Offit spends some time discussing Dr. Bob Sears's alternative vaccine schedule, the safety of aluminum, the "too many too soon" debate, and how many antigens an infant can receive.

VIC Network

A nationwide ‘virtual’ immunization community of health educators, public health communicators and others who promote immunizations

Objectives

• Describe communication strategies for public health professionals to use in counteracting anti-vaccine messages

• Identify fact based messages that engage parents and community members to help them make informed decisions• Determine the best approach for communicating science to the public

• Identify resources and support for immunization providers who communicate with patients and parents about vaccine safety.

Communicating Good Science Under a Cloud of Doubt

Featuring Paul A. Offit, MD, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Paul Offit, MD

Delaying, Spacing Out, Separating, and Withholding Vaccines

Paul A. Offit

Division of Infectious Diseases

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Too Many Vaccines Too Early

jmlkl

Fewer immunologic components are in vaccines today than

100 years ago

Number of antigens in vaccines

Year Vaccine # of antigens

1900 Smallpox 198

Total 198

Number of antigens in vaccines

Year Vaccine # of antigens

1960 Smallpox 198

Diphtheria 1

Tetanus 1

Pertussis (wc) ~3000

Polio (OPV) 15

Total ~3215

Number of antigens in vaccines

Year Vaccine # of antigens

1980 Diphtheria 1

Tetanus 1

Pertussis (wc) ~3000

Polio (OPV) 15

Measles 10

Mumps 9

Rubella 5

Total ~3041

Number of antigens in vaccines

Year Vaccine # of antigens

Immunological challenges from the environment vastly exceed challenges from vaccines

Are infants too young to be vaccinated?

u Humans first develop the capacity to respond to foreign antigens at about 14 weeks gestation.u However, few foreign antigens are present in utero. As a result, cells of the immune system are largely naïve at birth.

Are infants too young to be vaccinated?

u From birth, infants are challenged by bacteria in the environment (colonizing bacteria on intestines, skin, and throat; bacteria inhaled on dust).

u Vigorous sIgA responses within the first week of life keeps colonizing bacteria from invading.

u Combinatorial and junctional diversity of antibody genes account for about 109-1011 different antibodies.

How many vaccines can we respond to?

u Each vaccine contains about 10 immunological components (proteins or polysaccharides) and each antigen contains about 10 epitopes (102 epitopes per vaccine).u Approximately 107 B cells are present per ml of blood.

u If we divide 107 circulating B cells per ml by 102 epitopes per vaccine, then each person can respond to about 105 different vaccines at the same time.u Therefore, the 14 vaccines given to infants in the first 2 years of life will “use up” about 0.01% of the immune system.

“The alternative schedule suggests only one aluminum containing vaccine at a time in infant years. By spreading out the shots, you spread out the exposure so infants can process the aluminum without it reaching toxic levels.”

Robert Sears, The Vaccine Book, p. 239

Aluminum

u Aluminum is the third most abundant element on the earth’s surface and the most abundant metal.

u As a consequence, aluminum is in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink.

Aluminum in food

u The greatest source of aluminum is in food.

u Adults typically ingest 5-10 mg of aluminum per day.u Aluminum is found naturally in teas, herbs, and spices.

Aluminum in food

u Aluminum is also added to foods such as leavening agents, anti-caking agents, emulsifiers, and coloring agents.

Comments

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Most continuing medical education courses are arranged by "middlemen" companies for pharma so that the conference leaders don't have to declare their paid work as "industry conflicts". The middlemen companies declare themselves "neutral", though they work for the pharmaceutical industry. The CDC wasn't the only entity funding this. http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Ethics/15301

u Not science based
u More likely to induce needle phobia
u Increase time during which children
are susceptible to vaccine-preventable
diseases
u Responsibility to the waiting room
u No benefit"

What a crock of shit. Well, lets see... given that some of the alternative schedules are not too far off from those of the early '80's and before and we had alot less chronic disease and 1 in 10,000 with autism, I'd say it's a little more science based than the ridiculous schedule of today.

Increase chance of needle phobia? You can't be serious. Seems like a child would have more of a chance of developing a needle phobia if they were stuck multiple times at all of their well child visit's.

More susceptible to vaccine preventable diseases... again, please get serious. I don't recall reading about any more kids back in the '70's and '80's being caught in epidemics of disease. And now we have an epidemic of autism.

My kid doesn't owe you or anyone else in the damn waiting room a damn thing. Responsibility to waiting room... yeh you have one alright, but you are far from living up to that responsibility and it's one you took an oath for. That would be to first do no harm.

No benefit... I gues that's why we didn't have epidemics of vaccine preventable disease a few decades ago. those damn vaccines were of no benefit then on that unbloated schedule. Nope, those vaccines didn't work at all. The spread out, alternative comparable schedules of today did nothing to protect a few decades ago...

Kiss my ass Paul Offit. Parents are alot smarter than you will ever realize, and your students and those who go to your lectures are nothing but a bunch of tools who can't think for themselves.

I can't wait for the day you are realized to be what you really are. A selfish, greedy bastard.

Abstract
Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) is an uncommon inflammatory disorder of muscle believed to be due to persistence of vaccine-derived aluminium hydroxide at the site of injection. The condition is characterised by diffuse myalgias, arthralgia and fatigue. We describe a patient with histologically confirmed MMF whose presentation was atypical with left chest and upper limb pain beginning more than 10 years post vaccination. Treatment with steroids led to symptomatic improvement. Although rare, clinicians should consider MMF in cases of atypical myalgia.

Therefore there can be an important gap time between vaccination and symptoms.....

Abstract
Macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF) is an emerging condition, characterized by specific muscle lesions assessing long-term persistence of aluminum hydroxide within macrophages at the site of previous immunization. Affected patients mainly complain of arthromyalgias, chronic fatigue, and cognitive difficulties. We designed a comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tests to prospectively delineate MMF-associated cognitive dysfunction (MACD). Compared to control patients with arthritis and chronic pain, MMF patients had pronounced and specific cognitive impairment. MACD mainly affected (i) both visual and verbal memory; (ii) executive functions, including attention, working memory, and planning; and (iii) left ear extinction at dichotic listening test. Cognitive deficits did not correlate with pain, fatigue, depression, or disease duration. Pathophysiological mechanisms underlying MACD remain to be determined. In conclusion, long-term persistence of vaccine-derived aluminum hydroxide within the body assessed by MMF is associated with cognitive dysfunction, not solely due to chronic pain, fatigue and depression.

J Child Neurol. 2008 Jun;23(6):614-9. Epub 2008 Feb 15.

Macrophagic myofasciitis in children is a localized reaction to vaccination.
Lach B, Cupler EJ.

Abstract
Macrophagic myofasciitis is a novel, "inflammatory myopathy" described after a variety of vaccinations, almost exclusively in adults. We examined the relevance of histological findings of this myopathy to the clinical presentation in pediatric patients. Muscle biopsies from 8 children (7 months to 6 years old) with histological features of macrophagic myofasciitis were reviewed and correlated with the clinical manifestations. Patients underwent quadriceps muscle biopsy for suspected mitochondrial disease (4 patients), spinal muscular atrophy (2 patients), myoglobinuria (1 patient), and hypotonia with motor delay (1 patient). All biopsies showed identical granulomas composed of periodic acid-Schiff-positive and CD68-positive macrophages. Characteristic aluminum hydroxide crystals were identified by electron microscopy in 2 cases. The biopsy established diagnoses other than macrophagic myofasciitis in 5 patients: spinal muscular atrophy (2), Duchenne muscular dystrophy (1), phospho-glycerate kinase deficiency (1), and cytochrome c oxidase deficiency (1). Three children with manifestations and/or a family history of mitochondrial disease had otherwise morphologically normal muscle. All children had routine vaccinations between 2 months and 1 year before the biopsy, with up to 11 intramuscular injections, including the biopsy sites. There was no correlation between histological findings of macrophagic myofasciitis in biopsies and the clinical symptoms. We believe that macrophagic myofasciitis represents a localized histological hallmark of previous immunization with the aluminum hydroxide adjuvants contained in vaccines, rather than a primary or distinct inflammatory muscle disease
Lupus. 2009 Nov;18(13):1213-6.

Vaccines as a trigger for myopathies.
Orbach H, Tanay A.

Department of Medicine B, Wolfson Medical Center, Holon, Israel.
Abstract
Vaccines are considered to be among the greatest medical discoveries, credited with the virtual eradication of some diseases and the consequent improved survival and quality of life of the at-risk population. With that, vaccines are among the environmental factors implicated as triggers for the development of inflammatory myopathies. The sporadic reports on vaccine-induced inflammatory myopathies include cases of hepatitis B virus, bacillus Calmette-Guérin, tetanus, influenza, smallpox, polio, diphtheria, diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus, combination of diphtheria with scarlet fever and diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus with polio vaccines. However, a significant increase in the incidence of dermatomyositis or polymyositis after any massive vaccination campaign has not been reported in the literature. In study patients with inflammatory myopathies, no recent immunization was recorded in any of the patients. Moreover, after the 1976 mass flu vaccination, no increase in the incidence of inflammatory myopathies was observed. Although rare, macrophagic myofasciitis has been reported following vaccination and is attributed to the aluminium hydroxide used as an adjuvant in some vaccines. Prospective multicenter studies are needed to identify potential environmental factors, including vaccines, as potential triggers for inflammatory myopathies.

This whole aluminum thing ticks me off. Consuming aluminum through food IS NOT the same as it being injested directly into the bloodstream! Many of our kids have chronic Mastocytosis, which leads to a more permeable blood/brain barrier. Second, he talks about the vaccine issue as if all kids were the same. The put aluminum in the vaccines to over-rev up the immune system so the body responds to the antigen. Well what happens when a kid who is significantly predisposed to autoimmunity is routinely injected with aluminum, a substance put in the vaccines to over-rev up his immune system? Could that encourage his already dysregulated immune system to attack it's owwn body, it's own brain?
Could this be why my son's test results show that his own immune system attacks the myelin in his brain?